I do love a good soup and as soon as the dark nights start rolling in and the jumpers come out, soup is back on the menu and is one of our go to meals for warming and healthy lunches.
The beauty of soup is that that you can easily make your own using up whatever veg you have in the house and they can be a cheap as well as healthy addition to your menus each week.
I’m more of a fan of of a ‘smooth’ soup myself and I love my soup maker which gets used at least twice a week throughout the Autumn and Winter but last Winter, Linda, a friend of mine made a vat of minestrone soup and kindly delivered me a portion to try which I absolutely loved and just had to get the recipe off her. She sent me pictures of a newspaper recipe she’d cut out and kept (the original chef was Gino D’Acampo) which I use as my base and it’s now become a firm favourite in our house and particularly as money is much tighter this year than others, this is an inexpensive and filling meal which you can easily adapt to suit your tastes.
As with all my recipes, I’ll share how I made this version but I do regularly change the vegetables (whatever I have in) or the spices – again change to your taste or what you have in the cupboards. One tip though – if you are removing a vegetable from the recipe, try to replace it with the same quantity of another vegetable to keep the balance of the meal a good nutritious one.
Ingredients (makes a good 6-8 portions)
- 1 tbsp of olive oil
- Half a bag of Tesco vegetable base mix (frozen) – see below
- A tin of chopped tomatoes
- A tin of cannellini beans (draind)
- 3 medium potatoes (I don’t peel them)
- Leafy greens (eg cavolo nero, kale or cabbage)
- 100g of ‘small’ pasta (eg soup pasta or orzo)
- A small bunch of parsley
- Black pepper
- 2 litres of vegetable stock
1 tsp of parmesan per bowl (optional)
Vegetable Base Mix
First of all, I want to introduce you to vegetable base mix if you’ve not used it before! It’s one of my staple freezer items and is a brilliant time saver as well as boosting your vegetables in any meal you are cooking.
It’s basically really finely chopped onions, carrots and celery (so you could just make your own) but at £1.20 a bag, I always have a bag of this in to add to meals such as bolognese, chilli, curry, shepherds pie etc. I get it in Tesco but other supermarkets sell it too.
Method
Add the tbsp of olive oil to your largest pan and place on a medium heat.
Add the frozen vegetable base mix and cook for 5-10 mins until defrosted
Meanwhile, roughly chop your leafy greens, chop your potatoes into bitesize pieces and drain the cannellini beans.
Add the leafy greens, potatoes, tomatoes, cannellini beans and a pinch of black pepper to the pan and give it a good stir.
Add the 2 litres of vegetable stock to the pan ( I actually used chicken stock the last time I made it as we’d ran out of veg stock and it was equally as tasty)
It should end up looking like this – add more water if you’ve not got enough coverage.
Cover the pan and turn the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes.
Chop your parsley
Weigh out your pasta
Add to the pan, stir, cover and simmer for another 20 minutes or until the pasta is cooked and the potatoes are soft.
To serve: add a sprinkle (tsp) of parmesan to the top and a touch of black pepper if you fancy.
This batch makes enough for 6 good meals, you can keep it in the fridge or freeze if you’d prefer.
A perfect warming meal for very little effort or cost – perfect for the upcoming colder days and nights!
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Oh crikey, I’d forgotten how delicious homemade minestrone soup was, thank you George! I hope you’re feeling easier by now…call if you need help xx
Ooh glad I reminded you – I’m think I’m going to be making a vat a week until Spring! It’s so filling and tasty!
Thank you on the offer too – fingers crossed I’m on the road to recovery now (though I think it’s going to take a bit longer than I first anticipated!)
Gino and I both like this one !!!! It is my fav so filling certainly is a bowl of comfort . Xx
one of my faves too! Thank you for introducing me to it!
Do love this soup its so tasty and filling a meal on its on. Make this alot !
It’s such a winner and perfect for this time of year!